THE FASCIST VISION OF THE FUTURE

The Fascist negation of socialism, democracy, liberalism, should not, however, be interpreted as

implying a desire to drive the world backwards to positions occupied prior to 1789, a year

commonly referred to as that which opened the demo-liberal century. History does not travel

backwards. The Fascist doctrine has not taken De Maître as its prophet. Monarchical absolutism

is of the past, and so is ecclesiolatry. Dead and done for are feudal privileges and the division of

society into closed, uncommunicating castes. Neither has the Fascist conception of authority

anything in common with that of a police ridden State.

A party governing a nation “totalitarianly” is a new departure in history. There are no points of

reference, nor of comparison. From beneath the ruins of liberal, socialist, and democratic

doctrines, Fascism extracts those elements which are still vital. It preserves what may be

described as “the acquired facts” of history; it rejects all else. That is to say, it rejects the idea of

a doctrine suited to all times and to all people. Granted that the 19 th

century was the century of

socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20 th

century must also be the

century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free

5

to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the ” right “, a Fascist century.

If the 19 th

century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are

free to believe that this is the “collective” century, and therefore the century of the State. It is

quite logical for a new doctrine to make use of the still vital elements of other doctrines. No

doctrine was ever born quite new and bright and unheard of. No doctrine can boast absolute

originality. It is always connected, it only historically, with those which preceded it and those

which will follow it. Thus the scientific socialism of Marx links up to the utopian socialism of

the Fouriers, the Owens, the Saint-Simons ; thus the liberalism of the 19 th

century traces its

origin back to the illuministic movement of the 18 th

century and the doctrines of democracy to

those of the Encyclopaedists. All doctrines aim at directing the activities of men towards a given

objective; but these activities in their turn react on the doctrine, modifying and adjusting it to

new needs, or outstripping it. A doctrine must therefore be a vital act and not a verbal display.

Hence the pragmatic strain in Fascism, it’s will to power, its will to live, its attitude toward

Place Your Order Here!

violence, and its value.